Four Asian countries are receiving $35 million from a United Nations emergency fund which supports underfunded or forgotten humanitarian crises.
In total 13 countries, mainly in Africa, will share $104 million from the UN’s Central Emergency Response Fund or CERF.

World food prices are continuing to climb year on year driving more people into poverty that's according to figures released by the World Bank. In Pakistan, the high prices have come at a particularly difficult time, following catastrophic flooding last summer which caused enormous damage to major food producing areas. But now villagers in the hardest hit regions are getting the support to grow the crops they badly need. Daniel Dickinson reports.

Conflict in north-west Pakistan is forcing
thousands of people to flee their homes. In the past few weeks, more than
4,000 families have been displaced as a result of fighting between Pakistani
troops and militants. Many of those who are displaced end up in temporary
camps along the countries border with Afghanistan.

In rural Pakistan, many parents were
reluctant to send their daughters to school because it was seen as going
against local culture. But since last year's floods ravaged the country,
there seems to be a shift in what those parents are now allowing their
daughters to do.

In this special programme, we're taking
a look back at 2010, a year when a huge earthquake struck the Caribbean
island of Haiti, when millions of people across the world tried to break
out of poverty and when the UN mobilized relief and was called on to provide
long-term solutions for the planet - for peace, nuclear disarmament, climate
change.

UN Humanitarian Coordinator John Holmes
is stepping down after more than three years of overseeing the UN's response
to crises ranging from the devastating earthquake in Haiti to the current
flooding in Pakistan and Niger.

John Holmes, Under-Secretary-General
for Humanitarian Affairs and United Nations Emergency Relief Coordinator,
is leaving after three years of service to the UN. Gerry Adams asked him
about his plans for the future.